


Alternative Payment

by Acherona, trulywicked



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Derek Bakes, Good Peter Hale, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 11:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4346525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acherona/pseuds/Acherona, https://archiveofourown.org/users/trulywicked/pseuds/trulywicked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was a joke on Cora's behalf, poor impulse control on Stiles' and Laura did not expect Stiles to pick the option that he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alternative Payment

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [[Fanart] Alternative Payment Options](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4339673) by [wielka_mi_mecyja](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wielka_mi_mecyja/pseuds/wielka_mi_mecyja). 



Laura wasn’t sure whether her baby sister was a genius or a sadist but Cora was fantastic at jokes either way. When she first saw the new accepted payments sign on the front of the bakery she’d laughed for a solid five minutes. First because of the mental image of someone trying to pay Derek in Eggos but then the beard compliments slayed her and she was literally rolling on the sidewalk laughing. It was fantastic.

So of course she had to share the hilarity with her favorite person in Beacon Hills, the only person she’d ever met who could go toe to toe and brain to brain with her uncle and come out the winner, and the only person in Beacon Hills not a Hale who seemed brave enough to tease and poke at and annoy her brother until steam was nearly coming out of Derek’s ears. That he was also her boss’ son made access easy.

The next time he came in with lunch for his Dad, a discrete sniff told her it was turkey topped salad, she snagged him on his way out, “Stiles my precious, would you like to make Derek tear his hair out?”

Stiles paused and studied her, lifting a brow, “Not really but maybe I could be persuaded to make him do the growly scowly thing. What’s up?” He eased a hip onto Laura’s desk, a gleam of interest and amusement in his eyes.

Laura grinned and leaned in with an conspirators’ whisper and told Stiles about the sign Cora had put out.

At first Stiles snickered because yes, the idea of someone paying Derek Hale in waffles, or beard compliments or trying out a secret Illuminati handshake, which Stiles was already plotting on doing, was hilarious. But he choked on air when Laura listed ‘openmouth kisses’ as one method. “What? Laura don’t you think that one’s kind of a bad idea? I mean if some stranger just plants one on Derek and tries to slip him some tongue I’m pretty sure he’s going to send them flying through the bakery window.”

Laura snorted, “There is no one in this town with big enough titanium balls to ever try and french Derek as a payment method. He scares everyone but you.”

Stiles wasn’t so sure about that and later, as he stood outside the Bad Wolf Bakery and read the sign a couple times, he just kept seeing someone walking in, getting one of the pastries or cakes and trying to plant one on Derek. In his minds’ eye he saw someone else that didn’t really even know Derek kissing him and it made a sick ball knot in his gut both jealousy and protectiveness because he knew exactly how Derek felt about strangers intruding on his personal space and it wasn’t good. It was ten times worse when the intruding was sexual in nature.

He felt ridiculous being jealous of an imaginary person but he couldn’t help it. He’d been in love with Derek since his sophomore year in high school when the Hales had returned to Beacon Hills to slap a leash on their feral uncle. Finding out about werewolves had not dimmed that love at all. Finding out about Derek’s brief affair with Kate Argent, the source of the majority of his issues, had done nothing but make Stiles twice as protective and determined to get Derek to do more than grump and growl. 

He’d succeeded in making Derek laugh and smile several times. Of course it was kind of killing to his self esteem that it was usually when he was trying to flirt with Derek and get the blockhead to take the freaking hint that Derek laughed the most.

What if some stranger trying to pay in kisses ruined all that? Or just as bad what if Derek decided he liked whoever had kissed him and Stiles never got his chance with Derek at all? It all swirled around in his head like a storm until his impulsive nature took over and he marched into the bakery determined to do something.

\------------------------------------------------------

Cora couldn’t stop laughing, the look on Derek’s face was absolutely priceless. Some mix between astonished, lust crazed, and smitten. She’d never expected Stiles to do that in a million years. It was _fantastic_.

Laura was stunned by what she’d just seen. She knew about Stiles’ feelings for her brother of course but she hadn’t expected him to actually kiss Derek. She’d thought he’d try the Illuminati handshake and then tell Derek about the sign to warn him. Instead she’d just watched her favorite human kiss her brother’s brains out, and of course Derek was just standing there like a bump on a freaking log while Stiles ran away. Of course Derek was. Because her brother was a moron.

Derek couldn’t hear or focus above the roaring in his ears that was his blood coursing rapidly through his veins. All he could grasp at this moment was that Stiles had just kissed him, full on the mouth, that clever tongue slipping in and stealing his brain with slick, expert skill. Hell he could still taste Stiles, an odd hint cinnamon and citrus layering over complex unnamable flavors.

Then the reality snapped back and he heard his baby sister cackling and turned with a snarl, “Cora!” Oh she was going to pay for this.

\-----------------------------------------------

Stiles flung himself onto the couch in the living area of the apartment he shared with Scott and buried his face in a cushion, “Oh my God, Oh my God. I have fucked up. I fucked up so very very bad. I have just screwed myself sideways and not in the fun way. Derek’s gonna hate me. No worse, he’s going to shun me for the rest of eternity. What the hell was I thinking?!”

Scott, who had previously been necking with his girlfriend in the kitchen, came out flustered and worried, “Stiles? Why don’t you calm down and tell me what’s going on?”

“I kissed Derek.”

“...okay?”

“No Scott Cora put up a stupid sign about accepted payment options as a joke and I just lost my brain completely and frenched Derek in front of God and everybody. My brain went totally on a tangent then ran out the window giggling like a psycho. I so totally screwed up.”

In the kitchen Allison was watching a video Lydia had sent of the incident and biting hard on her bottom lip to keep from laughing at Stiles’ dramatics. She sent Lydia a text back, asking what was happening now and coughed at the description of Derek ordering Cora to pay for the next twenty customers before going to growl around in the back.

Scott shook his head and sat on the edge of a cushion next to Stiles’ hips, one hand reaching out to pat his best friend on the head. “I don’t think you screwed up. Derek’s been pretty much gone on you forever.”

"He has not. I've been flinging myself at his feet for years." Stiles said from his puddle of facedown couch misery. 

Allison called from the kitchen, "He's got a point. Stiles practically pelts Derek with little metaphorical candy 'Be Mine' hearts regularly."

"Yea but none of you stick around to see how Derek reacts after those little assaults. Stiles is more of a pelt and run kind of dude. Derek blushes. And Laura told me has a box where he saves all the crap Stiles gives him."

"Laura is a sadistic liar, almost as skilled as Peter. I trust nothing she says. And a blush could be anger too," Stiles bemoaned, very entrenched in his certainty he fucked up.

"Oh my god, you two blockheads deserve each other." Scott slumped back in his seat, rolling his eyes. 

Allison came out of the kitchen, phone in hand, speaker option on, "If you fucked up," Lydia's voice comes crisp from the phone, "Then you apologize and grovel for forgiveness after you have your little dramatic scene."

“Why am I friends with all of you, you’re all mean.” Stiles said from his prone position.

“Like recognizes like dear,” Lydia said warmly. She wasn’t unsympathetic to Stiles’ feelings. It was a bitch to be in love, moreso when the one you loved was a blind idiot. “

Scott was just beyond done. Stiles had pined after Derek for so long it made even his own pitiful courtship of Allison seem fast and he was honestly tired of seeing Stiles’ heart getting bruised.

Stiles made a rude sound and just burrowed deeper into the cushions.

\------------------------------------------

Cora growled as Laura helped her clean up the bakery after closing, when Derek had stomped off home to go brood. He’d been a bear the entire day since Stilinski had kissed and run. “Why does he cockblock himself so badly?”

Laura gave her a speaking look, “You know why.”

"He needs to get over that!"

"You don't _get over_ a betrayal like that or the loss and you know it." Laura hissed.

"So he is just going to be alone and miserable for the rest of his life when he has someone who actually loves him for the grumpy asshole he is?" Cora knew how hurt Derek was, what Kate did to him but she wanted him happy goddamnit.

"That depends on if Stiles can work up the balls to face him again or not I think. He ran out without even getting so much as a sugar cookie much less his usual Little Red special." Laura said, wincing when she remembered that. Poor Stiles.

"Because Derek just stood there like a big lug instead of sweeping Stiles off of his feet and kissing his brains out through his dick." Cora kept grumbling.

Laura gave her an amused, knowing look, "One day baby sister your deepest wish is going to appear in front of you out of the blue and you won't be able to squeak much less make a move. And I will remind you of this conversation when that happens."

"I'll believe that when it happens." Cora didn't think it ever would. She was too cynical and rough around the edges for anyone to want more than a quick tumble with her.

Laura just hummed and continued mopping, knowing that one day her sister would find her mate. Right now she just hoped Derek would grow a pair and claim his.

\-------------------------------------------

Derek sat, brooding over the little shoebox filled with the little things Stiles had given him over the years. There were ticket stubs in there too. Cora teased him mercilessly and called him a teenage girl for having an ‘I love Stiles but am way too big of a pussy to make a move’ box. He just considered it a good idea to keep pieces of good memories considering how many bad ones crowded in his head.

“Ah nephew,” Peter came out, using the wolf headed cane that Laura had given him to help support his weight. He was still healing from the fire after all these years, his muscle tone not yet returned in his right leg. “What has you brooding out here like a mournful little pup over your treasures hmm?”

He rolled his eyes at his uncle but scooted over to let Peter sit next to him. It was very strange some days dealing with his uncle because Peter never blamed him for what Kate had done to their family. In fact his uncle still did exactly what he’d always done, offered an ear and advice when Derek was twisted up. Like he was now so he told Peter what had happened.

Peter tapped a finger on his cane’s decorated head as he thought the situation through, “I for one think you should take the opportunity for happiness that you’ve been offered but whether you do or you don’t, you need to talk to Stiles. Because I would imagine, knowing him, he’s convincing himself that you hate him considering that you just stood there like a knothead.”

“Shit,” Derek winced because Peter was right. If he knew Stiles, and he did, the idiot was probably starting to spiral into a little bit of self-loathing for ‘forcing himself’ on Derek.

“Precisely. I’ll leave you to consider your options.” And if his nephew didn’t fix it, well Peter could still out sneak his sister’s children well enough to engineer locking Derek and Stiles together in a life or death situation.

Derek considered his options then decided that since it had started off with ‘forms of payment’ and Stiles had never gotten his pastry, well he’d just have to make sure he got one. He got up and went to the kitchen to make a modified version of their Little Red cupcake, one tailored to Stiles favorite flavors.

After he finished the treat and put it in one of the bakery’s single cupcake boxes, he cleaned himself up and headed over to Stiles’ apartment. Knocking on the door he tried to force down the nerves and butterflies in his stomach while he waited for someone to answer. The door was yanked open so suddenly he almost jumped a foot in the air.

Scott stared at Derek then breathed out, “Oh thank god. Come in, I was just leaving so you will have the place and stiles all to yourself."

Allison came up behind Scott and gave Derek a sweet smile, "Just don't make him miserable or I'll have to kill you." So saying she sashayed out past a wary Derek.

"And she'll do it too. Kill you I mean." Scott's expression was absolute adoration as he followed his girlfriend.

Derek stepped into the apartment and lifted a brow at the sounds of Stiles’ breathing under mournful country music.

"You are not funny Scott and I am not Xander Harris. My music of pain is sad Disney songs,” Stiles’ voice was muffled and a little irritable.

"You're a little like Xander...at times." Derek spoke softly.

Stiles yelped and tried to jump off the couch, failing miserably and wound up falling onto the floor, "Fuck ow."

"My point exactly." Derek was pretty sure he's absolutely screwed because he found that flailing and cursing adorable. "Here." He held out the cupcake box.

"Um..." Stiles stared up at him, all wide, guilty amber eyes, glancing occasionally at the box, "What?"

"Here...for you." Derek was still holding the box out, and feeling more and more like an idiot by the second.

Stiles' brows furrowed, "Aren't you...mad at me?"

"What? No. Why would I be mad at you?" Derek's eyebrows did a confused caterpillar dance. "I came over to apologize, this is my apology box."

"Dude I just grabbed you and frenched you without asking. Which was a bad thing for me to do, I should have just told you about the sign or something instead of you know...taking advantage of it." Stiles levered himself off the floor and settled back onto the couch.

"Stiles..." Derek moved to sit down next to Stiles, "I am perfectly capable of pushing someone away if I feel taken advantage of, even if I am surprised."

"I still shouldn't have just jumped you," Stiles muttered.

"It's okay, I didn't mind you jumping me." Derek paused, "Though next time I wouldn't mind being a little more prepared...and getting to participate."

That had Stiles' head whipping around toward him. "Next time? You want a next time? Really?" There was almost painful hope gleaming in his eyes and bursting in his chest

"Did you miss me being here? At your apartment? Holding a box with my red velvet heart out to you?" Derek wiggled the box in the air before setting it on the coffee table.

"Well I've kinda been throwing my heart at you for a few years. I figured you were just ignoring it cause you weren't interested but you didn't want things to get awkward." Stiles shrugged.

"Partly true." Derek had to admit. "I did ignore it, not because I wasn't interested. I AM, interested I mean. Just...you know my history."

"I'm going to presume you don't think I'm like She-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named because otherwise I will be forced to find a way to Nair your face."

"I wouldn't be here if I thought that. I know you are nothing like her. It's more like a bit of me just got lost with her. My courage and self esteem just disappeared along with my family."

"Maybe the self-esteem but you've got bigger balls than anyone I know of and they're all solid steel."

"I can assure you that they are not." Derek didn't mean for that to be an innuendo but it certainly did sound like one.

"You can prove it to me after our first date." Stiles said, lips curving in a sly smile.

"Okay...to the first date. I might hold off with the show and tell for a while." Not too long though because Derek could feel his blood running hot at the sight of that smile.

"Okay but you're gonna jump me and kiss my brains out right? I mean turnabout and fair play and equal exchange and all that."

"That I think we can manage." Derek smiled softly. "Now eat your cake and for God's sake, shut off this sad music."

“I kinda can’t, Scott hid the remote.” Stiles picked up the cupcake box.

Derek just rolled his eyes and got up walking over to the stereo system and unplugging it, “There, problem solved.”

And Stiles laughed.

\------------------------------------------------

Cora snatched the phone Erica held out to her then shoved it in her sister’s face, “Bam! I am a goddess. Bow down before my genius.”

Laura blinked and caught the wildly waving hand so she could actually see the image, which was of her brother pulling a grinning Stiles in for a kiss over the table at Beacon Hills’ nicest restaurant. She smiled, “Not genius level because I hear that Uncle Peter had to give Derek the nudge to go to Stiles but you get partial credit. Now get back to work, you have a customer.”

Cora razzed her sister and went over to the register, looking at Liam Dunbar, one of their hottest, in her opinion, regulars. “What can I do for you?”

“Actually, before I order, I was wondering if I could substitute a date for the kiss?” Liam asked, giving her a warm and slightly wicked smile and ignoring the way Derek Hale started to cackle from the back.


End file.
